Pleasure
Island, Wakefield, Massachusetts, 1959-1969

Tidbits

Blueprint
for Customer Pleasure,
Pleasure Island customers get the red carpet treatment from personnel
trained to welcome, make the patrons feel at home. Funspot Amusement-Recreation
Management, December 1959.

The
building in the background of this postcard housed the Pleasure Island
Carousel on the Midway at Lake Nipmuc Park in Mendon, Massachusetts prior
to its move to Wakefield in 1960. From Tom Irons, Mendon, via George
Appleton.

Pleasure
Island is featured in the 2001 edition of The International Resource Guide
for Themed Entertainment. (Click image for larger version.)

Here's Pleasure Island designer
C.V. Wood in 1970 by the London Bridge at Lake Havasu City.

E9 at Pleasure
Island : Posted to the Boston & Maine Fourm

Shows a B+M locomotive in
the background. This was part of a static display at Pleasure Island,
funded, in part, by Blount, of Steamtown fame.

Does anybody know what happened
to theis B+M Loco? thanks,

mike

Posted by: Al P (alp@cheshire.net)
on Mon, Apr 2, 01 at 17:18

I belive it was an E7 and
it was scrapped.

I would expect Doug Kydd
to weigh in heavily on this one. Al P.

Posted by: Doug Kydd (DFKyddSeDe@aol.com)
on Mon, Apr 16, 01 at 0:02

definately was E-7 # 3814,
which in 1952 pulled Dwight Eisenhower's campaign special along the
Western Route into Boston. It, along with Pacific # 3713 was hauled
out of Pleasure Island on Dec 16, 1961, ended up at Schiavone scrap
yard at Charlestown MA and was scrapped by Late 1963

Wed,
21 Mar 2001

Hello,

You may not be aware of it,
but the #5 locomotive that used to serve at Pleasure Island in the '60s
can now be found at the WW&F Railway Museum, located in Alna Maine.
We purchased it in 1999 and have been running it since last year. The
URL is http://www.wwfry.org
if you are interested.

I have a question about the
lettering schemes found on the engine while it was at Pleasure Island,
and I was hoping someone might be able shed some light on it. Saturday
I was scraping paint off the tank of the engine when I found not one,
but three separate letterings of "Old Smokey RR".

There was a layer of silver
lettering that appears to have been applied first. Next it appeared
that there was a yellow layer, and a white layer. The silver and yellow
letterings were three lines, centered on the tank in this manner:

OldSmokeyRR

The white lettering was not
centered, and looked roughly like this:

OldSmokeyRR

I've already determined through
other channels that the yellow lettering was there in 1970, when the
locomotive was back at the Edaville Railroad, which supplied the engines
and passenger cars for the Pleasure Island attraction.

So my question is: can anyone
tell me roughly when the other lettering schemes were on the engine?

Test firing of the Wiscasset,
Waterville, and Farmington Railway 1999 steam locomotive acquisition,
#10 (ex-Edaville #5) which was brought to Pleasure Island's from Louisiana
in 1959 and nicknamed "Betsy"

One of the engineers to design
& build the moby dick ride lived across the street from me.His name was
Dave Burbine aka Cowboy.I grew up in greenwood on greenwood ave.He had
a daughter carol.I dont know if they live in wakefield anymore but maybe
he could help in getting more info. John Murray
BigJ830@aol.com

From Time Magazine,
1959, as quoted at the Thrill Mountain web site page "Disney and
Son"

...Such coin counting has
spawned sincere flattery: imitation Disneyland's are shooting up across
the country. The best are the brainchild of drawling, a blunt-talking
Texan C.V.Wood, 38, a onetime industrial engineer whose survey on Disneyland's
prospects so impressed the master that he was invited in to build the
park. At present, Wood is supervising construction of five others (including
Denver's Magic Mountain, Great Southwest Park near Dallas, Montana Magica
in Caracas), has half a dozen more in the planning stage. This week,
his latest is open: $4,000,000 Pleasure Island, 14 miles north of Boston
in Wakefield, Mass. Most spectacular feature: a 19th century New England
fishing village, from which the kiddies can slosh off in whale boats
to stalk a 70-ft. replica of Moby Dick.

http://www.thrillmountain.com/articles.asp?art=118

Carousels of New England
Web Site

"frame of a portable
carousel appears in the 1968 movie Charly, no figures on it, had overhead
jumping mechanism"

Dear Mr. Moore, Thank you
for many happy Saturdays in front of the black and white Philco and
for the twinge of surprise when, seeing you in person at Pleasure Island
in Wakefield, Mass, I learned that your outfit was blue! I also learned
that you were a real person with real feelings when you recited the
Lone Ranger Creed. It made a lasting impression. Thank you for bringing
the Lone Ranger to life and for adding more substance than the scriptwriters
could have first imagined. Dexter Rowe.

From the Lost Colorado Ski
Areas page of the "Colordao Skier" web site...

"A man named C.V. Wood
was the Big Kahuna for Disney during the building and first few years
of DISNEYLAND operation. He left Disney and became a "theme park consultant"
billing himself as "The Master Planner of Disneyland" until Disney sued.
Wood's first theme park was PLEASURE ISLAND in Wakefield, MA near Boston.
It opened in 1959 and is now closed. His second theme park was FREEDOMLAND,
in NYC. It opened in 1960 and lasted five seasons. Mr. Wood was very
good at building theme parks that lacked one item - the Disney magic."

This makes
a thickener that can be stored indefinitely and used for gravies,
soups, and stews. ALWAYS heat before adding.

Mrs. Regina Short of Burlington
called me about the pirate boat. She said she wished she had good news,
but wanted to respond to my letter. She said that they bought the house
in 1952 with 6 acres, and the boat is still out in the back yard but totally
overgrown with trees. She said her kids are grown but still go out there
to play cards, etc. and did not want her to give away the boat that their
deceased dad brought home from PI. I asked her if we could take a picture,
and she said that it is very dilapidated and overgrown with trees, and
we wouldn't even be able to airlift it out. Mary K. Galvin, 10/26/2000

Did you know that Wakefield's
Roy and Judy Babb had their first date at Pleasure Island?

Did you know that the movie
"Charlie" was filmed at Pleasure Island? Cliff Robertson won an academy
award for best actor for the 1968 drama based on "Flowers for Algernon,"
by Daniel Keyes. Also starring Claire Bloom, "Charlie" is available on
videotape at Blockbusters.

"Pleasure
Island," from A Century of Fun: A Pictorial History of New
England Amusement Parks, by Bob Goldsack of Nashua New Hampshire,
Published by Midway Museum Publications, P,.O. Box 6477, Nashua NH 03063

From the History of the
Royal Hanneford Circus... Tommy Hanneford is recorded as a circus
performer as early as April of 1933 with the Downie Brothers Circus.
At the time, he was a clown and only 5 years old. Not since his father,
George, Sr., had a Hanneford owned and operated his own circus. So it
was at Pleasure Island Park in Wakefield, Massachusetts in 1965
when Tommy, his sister Kay with her dog act, his wife Struppi on the
high wire, and other acts performed the first Hanneford Circus, a title
incorporated in Macon, Georgia.